Shooting Stars 259 



comets, astronomers have found some of them to be 

 identical. A lost comet was shown to have had the 

 same orbit as the meteors of November 23, which are 

 known as Andromedes from the constellation of Androm- 

 eda, whence they seem to come. It is believed that 

 these meteors once formed Biela's comet. Likewise 

 each swarm or ring of meteors may once have been part 

 or all of a comet. As the number of shooting stars 

 which the earth encounters daily is several hundred 

 millions, its mass must have increased from this source 

 in the course of long ages. The same increase in weight 

 from falling meteors must have taken place in the case 

 of the other planets also. 



